It is well known that silicon resins have excellent weatherability, heat resistance and chemical resistance and are useful as an ingredient for paints, adhesives, sealing agents, tacking agents, and the like, but these resins are not necessarily widely used because of their high cost. It has been tried to introduce a reactive silyl group into various non-expensive resins in order to use these resins as a replacement of the expensive silyl resins. Among these replacements, a practically used product is a polypropylene glycol (PPG) having alkoxysilyl groups at both terminals [cf. "Kobunshi" (High Polymers, Japan), 30 (5), 298 (1981), and Journal of the Adhesion Society of Japan, 19 (6), 252 (1983))], but this product is inferior in weatherability and heat resistance because its main chain is composed of PPG.
It has also been known that acrylic resins have excellent weatherability and heat resistance, and the resins are widely used for the production of paints and molded products. In order to give various functions to the acrylic resins, it has recently been tried to introduce various functional groups into the resins. For instance, an acrylic monomer is copolymerized with other monomer having a functional group by a radical polymerization, by which a functional group is introduced into the side chain of the polymer. It is also known to introduce a functional group at the polymer terminal by using a chain transfer agent or initiator which have a functional group. By these known methods, however, it is difficult to prepare a telechelic vinyl polymer having reactive silyl groups at both terminals thereof.
It is also reported that introduction of a silyl group at the terminal of a polymethacrylic ester has been accomplished by an ion polymerization (cf. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 105, 5706 (1983)]. However, according to this method, a complicated initiator is to be used, and only methyl methacrylate can be used as the monomer, and further, it is difficult to control the reaction conditions. Thus, this method is not suitable from the practical viewpoint.